These days, almost every element of business is
project-driven. But what happens when the inevitable strikes: key projects
threaten to become delayed or derailed?

If your company is not using a formal process for managing risk throughout your
project portfolio, then the impact on your business is potentially high.

All projects carry risk, either inherently within the
project or from external factors that can have a significant impact. For
example, impacts can be on reputation, safety, and from a more quantitative
perspective, cost and time. They key benefit is to understand the potential
impact as early as possible, so that any appropriate response strategies can be
implemented. Additionally, the right balance of contingency should reflect the
risk exposure that is present. All too typical you see a more ‘gut feeling’
approach, with a 20% contingency added in.

If a robust process
is in place, and simple and robust tools
are there underpinning that process, then the people in the organization can spend more time on their primary responsibilities
rather than managing tools. Too often though, there is a common practice of
having disparate tools like spreadsheets that provide a disconnected
environment-important data is collected, but not made easily available to the
right people. Having a central repository where all relevant risks are housed
along with all the project information is a good start. Now executives can see
a rolled up view of project information and project level folks can see a more
tactical view of project performance all at the same time.

Oracle Primavera provides a platform where project risks are
captured in one place for all projects in the portfolio and tools for evaluating
risk scenarios and developing response plans.

If you are interested in learning more on this subject,
please join me on April 25 at 1:00 p.m. ET for a more in-depth presentation and
discussion, a live Webcast, Take the Uncertainty Out of Your Project
Management.